With just less than a minute to play in an 83-70 victory against Iowa on Thursday, Iowa State women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly subbed in his second unit. With 39 seconds left, he re-inserted his starters, much to the delight of the Hilton Coliseum crowd, after Iowa coach Lisa Bluder kept her starters in and a press on.

With just less than a minute to play in an 83-70 victory against Iowa on Thursday, Iowa State women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly subbed in his second unit. With 39 seconds left, he re-inserted his starters, much to the delight of the Hilton Coliseum crowd, after Iowa coach Lisa Bluder kept her starters in and a press on.

"My job is to protect our players. If you’re going to press my second team, then I got to do what I got to do. That’s their choice, and that was my choice."

Bluder played the drama off, saying the game "was over" but adding she had the future in mind.

"What we’re trying to do is get through those situations and learn so that when we play down the road, we can get better in those situations," Bluder said. "Any coach, again, has the opportunity to do anything they want until the buzzer sounds."

The two coaches shared a postgame handshake without incident. For their part, the Cyclones were appreciative of Fennelly’s response.

"We weren’t going to watch them get pressed full court and have our bench handle the ball full court, which they never do in practice or anything like that," guard Brynn Williamson said. "Coach said in the locker room it had nothing to do with the (second unit). He was trying to protect us and not embarrass our girls."

Buckley gets aggressive

Essentially since Jadda Buckley arrived on campus, Fennelly has been imploring her to be aggressive offensively. She finally heeded the message Thursday, after starting point guard Nikki Moody encountered some foul trouble.

Buckley scored a career-high 19 points in 38 minutes, doing most of her damage at the free-throw line, where she was 14-of-16. Those trips were made possible by consistently getting into the paint and drawing contact.

"Jadda Buckley was the Jadda Buckley we tried to recruit," Fennelly said.

Against a Hawkeyes lineup that featured less-fleet-of-foot guards in Samantha Logic and Melissa Dixon, the Cyclones believed Buckley could exploit a mismatch, and she did.

"We’ve been really trying to get Jadda, as everyone knows, to be more aggressive and not just be standing around watching," Fennelly said. "I think in a weird way, when Nikki got in foul trouble, Jadda had to have the ball. And they couldn’t stay in front of her … We really thought we could attack them off the bounce."

We hardly knew ya

Thursday wasn’t ISU sophomore guard Kidd Blaskowsky’s night.

In a rarely seen box score nugget, Blaskowsky fouled while playing just six minutes. She was disqualified on a second-half play that was symbolic. Diving for a loose ball on a play that could’ve gone unwhistled or either way, she was tabbed for her fifth foul.

"You don’t foul out in six minutes very often," Fennelly said. "I felt bad for her. It didn’t matter what happened, when the whistle blew, it was (No.) 15."

"So when that happens, somebody else has to do something, and luckily we did."